I guess I’m just enjoying this 2018 Mercedes I bought new off the lot in cash that was the last of its kind to have no big brother tech in it.

As scary & intrusive as all of that sounds, I’m still only worried they’ll spy me picking my nose while driving.

private data is money and power for companies

Please someone explain to me for the thousandth time how our personal data equals money because I still don’t understand. My bank account has no money going to Google, meta, X…

I truly want to understand where they’re getting all this money.

Ah the pleasant names they give these things: The Patriot Act, The Big Beautiful Bill, No Child Left Behind, giving citizens the illusion these will improve the country and improve everyone’s lives but it couldn’t be more opposite.

Hey I’m technically doing something illegal right now that I do every day all day long and IDGAF because the law regarding this thing is stupid & oppressive & I’m not hurting myself or anyone else.

But WTF is OP doing on the internet that makes him constantly worried the SWAT Team is gonna be banging down his door? That’s not normal.

If there’s one thing I know for sure, anonymity on the internet does not exist. Everything & everyone is trackable.

Why are you doing sketchy things on the internet?

If your own conscience is haunting you, that’s a good signal for you to fix your behavior so you can have a clear conscience and you won’t need to worry about the law closing in on you. What a horrible existence that must be.

Check out this guy online telling us online that he doesn’t do anything online.

I pull out my sewing kit and use the seam ripper to remove the tag one stitch at a time, then I find the best match for color thread that the original manufacturer used, to sew the collar back until you can’t even tell a tag was ever there.

okay then Boys can be sisters, sis.

bro’s… facing each other… touch the tips together.

Clearly a metaphor about guys & penises.

If you’re trying to make a gay joke, it landed wrong because I’m a girl.

Thanks homie for the whole official scoop on this.

Search engines suck. I’d rather talk to real people, I mean anyone but you.

because I was worried it was privacy-related, I was worried that it meant 6 devices are connected to my Wi-Fi which I should be the only person connected to right now. But based on everyone’s responses, it looks like that number 6 is a pretty damn good thing and not a bad scary privacy concern thing at all.

okay based on everyone’s responses, it looks like the number six is a good thing, and not a bad scary thing that would be a cause for privacy concern. Thank you all.

Oh man, imagine all the power I’d have with all the Helsinki students’ personal data

nah I think that’d be about as useful as seeing a thousand different license plates on a thousand different cars every day

🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m in the wrong place? You mean this place privacy@lemmy.ml ? Now I’m curious what y’all here are hiding.

My wife? Gross! I’m heterosexual woman. and everything else you described, except for social security numbers, sounds a lot like Facebook. Which I don’t use.

um I don’t use a vpn. Please tell me why I should use a VPN. It’s just something that costs money that seems unnecessary. I have nothing to hide. Why are you all hiding behind VPNs? What am I missing?

phone batteries used to be removable on the user level. hasn’t been that way in like 10 years.

maybe Wogi wants to check his makeup in the mirror while he’s out at guillotine-the-rich rallies.

I kept having to randomly scramble it until it gave me a number I liked.

including everything they see through our front camera and rear cameras 😱

some websites require Chrome and don’t work with anything else.

and then these college classes I’m taking, my laptop broke so they’re loaning me a campus Chromebook. I’m like okay whatever. Of course just use it for school nothing else.

There’s never been a better time to not have any friends or family or anyone you text with whatsoever besides two-factor authentication codes and messages from work and doctor appointment reminders. Cheers!

Yup, I’m telling you, when I first got this phone, first thing I noticed was fucking candy crush et al, and immediately uninstalled all that junk. And every time it runs a software update, i kid you not, within a couple days I’m looking through my phone and I notice more shit they installed. Monopoly, Candy crush, block stacking games, I didn’t ask for any of this! delete delete delete.

damn i had to screenshot & zoom in to figure out what the heck emoji that was

I’m just trying to avoid getting bloatware installed on my phone every time they run a mandatory software update. that was probably a Samsung thing and had nothing to do with Verizon but whatever the case,

It’s time to upgrade.

I’mma get starlink.

I pair my phone to my car’s Bluetooth. Google maps is what I use. You don’t need Android Auto for that.

Same. I pair my phone to my car’s Bluetooth.

No Android Auto overbearing Big Brother necessary.

Seems that guy who loves Android Auto so much thinks there’s no other option 🤦‍♀️

I can’t imagine ever needing it. What is it even for? All it ever did for me was instantly answer spam phone calls that I would have rejected, doesn’t let me use my phone until my GPS indicates I’ve reached my destination, and it would automatically answer texts telling them that I’m driving. Like leave me alone big brother ugh!

ooh no problem I despise android auto and glad it doesn’t force my phone to connect every time I start driving the way it did at the beginning, I had to dig into the settings and figure out how to disable it.

thank you

I will never buy an Apple product.

r o m?

range of motion

Read only material

That’s all I’ve got

everyone’s recommending Pixel. That’s good to know.

ok but we’re all here because we’re interested in privacy, so please tell me what does Google Pixel have anything to do with privacy??

“Google” & “Privacy” are contradictions.

Will a pixel respect my wishes for them to not install game apps behind my back?

And how can I buy one without bloatware already loaded on it? When I bought this phone I had to delete so much bloatware.

Ah yes Netflix. I was going through the apps on my phone to delete things that I don’t need, there’s a bunch of shit on there I never installed and can’t be uninstalled. like Netflix.

Everybody? I don’t know how to scrape. Teach me how to “scrape.” What am I missing out on?